Project: Durance of Magic

:: Neverspring Chronicles ::

Marrick and Natasha were just kids when the fall of their house split them apart. One became a street-wise thief on the run from his past. The other, a prodigy sorceress raised in secret behind monastery walls. But fate will bring them back together when a mysterious relic offers them a clue to their father's murder. Together they must put aside their differences and stand together to confront the forces that brought down their family--but they'll have to survive long enough to find each other first.

Step into a distant land where ancient gods slumber, waiting to be awakened by the wrong hands. Lead a party of reluctant heroes caught between the ambitions of a driven adversary and the mysteries of a shattered realm. Explore ancient ruins, treacherous forests, and forgotten temples, all while building relationships with a cast of unforgettable characters in a strange and fantastic world.

Gameplay Features:

- A classic 1990's style JRPG adventure from humble origins almost 20 years in the making. Designed from the ground up to preserve that era's vibe and challenge.

- Designed with a dedication to story and immersion. Not about fancy new mechanics or flashy trends. Like how every book is another story to be told, this game seeks only to be another adventure to be had.

- Show your support for the little guys and see the hard work of multiple independent artists and musicians come together to form a strange and fantastic world where technology feeds on the death of Magic.

- Traditional turn-based RPG combat with just enough modernization to keep things fun and engaging without losing that 1990's feel. The game's Active Turn System allows battles to be fought as relaxed or as quickly as the player performs.

- Hand-crafted world maps and dungeons filled with secret passages and hidden rooms to explore.

- Interact with a cast of 10 playable characters through a well-paced story on a distant world.

- Character system lets you progress and customize your skills through the use of Magitech devices.

- Tons of loot and items to customize powerful builds.

- Side quests and optional content sprinkled throughout the world.

- Replayability through customization choices and game modes like New Game Plus.

- Support for the game goes directly into the game itself. As a solo indie dev with no publisher, everything is direct-to-dev including feedback and bug reports. Active updates continue to improve all aspects of gameplay including artwork, level design, and combat performance. Every little bit helps me continue to make more games.

The Setting & Game World:

- A distant world with strange ways. The lands of Neverspring are divided by impassible oceans teeming with ferocious ship-eating creatures. The game's story takes place in a land ruled by the Gengtaka Empire. - Throughout the land, an ancient tale persists: The Old Story. This tale claims that their world is actually the manifestation of a powerful dream. For deep within their world sleeps a cosmic prisoner of unimaginable power. - The Old Story says that when this prisoner begins to awaken, the gods send The Old Ones to destroy the world with fire, water, earth, and wind so that they can reseed the world with new life--to reinforce the living prison that is their world. This has happened 5 times in the world's history... but this time something changed. - The Gengtaka Empire forced itself upon the land, "for the good of all" they said. The Magic artifacts of the world were hunted down, stripped, and disenchanted. The residual Mana industrialized and reduced to a consumable commodity. The sheer sacrilege of the Empire's efforts sparked the Unification Wars--also known as the Great War--and led to solidifying the Empire's power throughout the land. - With no one to stop them, the Empire harvested Mana across the land and funneled immense, industrial levels of Magic directly to one man: the Emperor. With this power, the Emperor fulfilled the promise of commonwealth the Empire had professed as he stood ready to confront the Old Ones, should they ever come... and they did. - The Old Ones came to destroy the world but the Emperor was ready. He battled them toe-to-toe with the combined power of Magic and industry--the power of Magitech. The Emperor was able to beat them and save the world but he was wounded badly. The Magitech Engineers of the Empire put him into a regenerative sleep that would take years, but it would keep him alive and slowly heal him. - The Emperor made the decrees, activated the Provisional Republic, and made a promise to return when healthy enough to continue the Empire's plans. When he was ready he would take the fight to the gods themselves and free their world from the Old Story's cycle of destruction. - But that was years ago... and in the vacuum of power left by the Emperor's regenerative slumber, there are those in the Empire who plot and scheme.

Play Neverspring Chronicles on Steam

:: Developer Note ::

So this was the one. The project they tell you not to do. Not only did I start this project as my "dream game" but I started it as my first game... 20 years ago. It started out as a book I wanted to write, became a pen-and-paper RPG for a summer with friends, then eventually I settled on making it a game because I didn't have the discipline to write a novel. So I worked on this project off-and-on for 20 years, eventually finishing an Early Access version that I released on Steam in late 2022. It was terrible... So I scrapped it and I started from scratch. I went back to the drawing board. I rewrote the story, taught myself to code, and studied techniques on writing, storytelling, and filmography. I scoured the internet for other independents--artists and musicians who could fill the gaps in my creative skills. There were a lot of challenges to overcome but in the end I finally did it. In March of 2025 I finished my game. It's rough and low-budget, it's done on an engine everyone looks down on, but it's there in all it's indie glory. A legit, full-blown JRPG adventure that captures the SNES era of 1990s gaming.

Over those years I did make other smaller games so while this is my "first game", it's not the first game I completed. In reality, when you take into account the total re-development after Early Access--and I do mean total--then really this is maybe my 3rd or 4th game and it took about 3 years of dedicated development once I started taking myself seriously.

The game released to a surprising modicum of success, albeit due mostly in part to a YouTube video I posted where I was just trying to get some of the emotion of those 20 years off my chest. The video blew up out of nowhere with 30k views in two weeks, which was a blessing of unintended marketing for getting it out there in front of potential players. However, the YouTube algorythm cut the video down, hard. So the effect was only temporary--but the results were intriguing. I found that feedback was more positive than I had expected with even skeptical players not only playing but actually finishing the game and walking away pleasantly surprised. After all was said and done with the first months of release, I felt really inspired by the outcome. To my surprise, there was actually only 1 piece of negative feedback--the one thing I kept hearing--and that was that Neverspring Chronicles, at a glance, was obviously made with one of the RPG Maker engines. In that same vein, some of the greatest (to me) feedback I got was from players who went into the game expecting something unremarkable because of the engine. By the time they finished playing, they were shocked the game had been developed in RM. I took it as a compliment. So while the game is just an obscure indie title out there collecting dust, to me it feels like a success. The game was designed to stand alone but it's also designed to be the first in a series of games that I hope to be able to continue. As such, this game still gets a lot of attention through updates and improvements.